Michael Fabricant: The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) is absolutely right to raise the issues that he has—he is often right, actually. I declare an interest here, Mr Speaker. In the Dyfi valley, in Gwynedd, broadband fibre was connected to premises after being a complete non-spot for so many years. Can my hon. Friend the Minister carry on with the hard work to ensure that there is gigabit connection within Cymru—Wales?

Dehenna Davison: I am grateful to my hon. Friend not just for his contribution today but for the way in which he engaged with us following this incredibly tragic case. This legislation is designed specifically to ensure that terrible cases like that faced not only by Awaab but by the Grenfell United community do not happen again, and that tenants have the protection and the respect they deserve from social housing providers.
I know I am not alone in saying that I was deeply shocked by the tragic death of Awaab Ishak. The death of a child is always heartbreaking, and its having been entirely preventable makes it even more devastating. My thoughts remain with Awaab’s family in the difficult time that they have been going through. This terrible case has thrown into sharp relief the need for this Government to continue steadfastly in their mission to drive up the quality of this country’s social housing and, crucially, to rebalance the relationship between tenants and landlords. Within the Government we are well aware that, unfortunately, damp and mould are not the only hazards that can pose a threat to social residents’ health. For example, excessive cold and falls caused by disrepair in homes are among the top five hazards found in homes in England.
That is why the Secretary of State has tabled the Government new clause for Awaab’s law, which not only addresses the concerns underpinning the Awaab’s law proposals but goes further by enabling the Government to introduce new requirements on landlords to act on a broader range of hazards. We will take a power for the Secretary of State to set out in secondary legislation requirements for landlords to rectify hazards or rehouse residents within a certain time. Our new clause will empower tenants to challenge their landlords for inaction. It inserts an implied covenant into tenancy agreements that landlords will comply with the requirements prescribed in regulations. This will empower landlords to deal with hazards such as damp and mould in a timely fashion, knowing that if they fail to do so they can face a legal challenge from residents.
It is crucial that any new measures to address the issues of damp, mould and other hazards putting residents’ health at risk are proportionate and evidence-based and deliver the right outcomes for social residents in the long term. That is why we intend to consult on these new requirements, including time limits, within six months of Royal Assent and to lay the secondary legislation as soon as possible thereafter.
We are also tabling new clause 4 and Government amendments 1 and 11 to 14, which will ensure that the Regulator of Social Housing sets standards for landlords and provides tenants with information about how to make complaints and about their rights as tenants. To demonstrate our commitment to this, we have included a duty for the Secretary of State to issue a direction to this effect within six months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent.
I turn now to the important matter of professional standards in the sector. Grenfell United has long campaigned for mandatory qualifications to be introduced  in the sector to ensure that professional standards are consistently high across the sector and to bring social housing into line with other frontline services such as social work, teaching and health and social care. At the earlier stages of the Bill I made it clear that we had to proceed cautiously on mandatory qualifications, as there was an identified risk that requirements could lead to housing associations being reclassified by the Office for National Statistics to the public sector, which in turn would hamper their ability to invest in improving the quality of existing homes and in building new stock.
However, I have made it clear in this process that we are here to listen and take on board comments from stakeholders and Members from across the House. We took heed of the arguments made by Grenfell United and Shelter and by those who spoke so passionately in both Houses on this matter. The tragic death of Awaab Ishak also underlined how vital it is that we use every lever at our disposal to deliver the consistently high level of professional standards that tenants deserve. Since the Commons Committee stage, we have worked incredibly hard to find a solution. I am grateful to Grenfell United and Shelter for their ongoing work with us on this issue and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and my noble Friend Baroness Sanderson. I am proud to stand here today having tabled Government amendments 44 to 47 to deliver qualification requirements to improve the experience of social housing tenants.
We agree with the Government that the regulator should retain a high degree of operational independence and flexibility in formulating and implementing the inspections plan now required by clause 28, but we believe the Government are making a mistake in refusing to mandate the two basic requirements that we have proposed: namely, an inspection for all landlords irrespective of size at least once every four years.
To ensure that every social landlord must be inspected within four years of the commencement of the Act, and then inspected by the regulator at intervals of no longer than four years thereafter, we have tabled amendment 40. I commend it to the House as the best possible means of giving tenants real confidence in the new inspections regime. If the Government are intent on resisting it today, the Minister could, at the very minimum, state clearly from the Dispatch Box that the Government will not rule out an inspection plan that includes smaller landlords and will listen to the arguments for including them carefully in the forthcoming consultation process.
Finally, on tenant empowerment, we firmly believe that the empowerment of social tenants should be at the heart of the Bill, and we believe that a key test of its overall robustness is whether it ultimately includes mechanisms that will enable tenants to influence in practice the regulator’s approach to regulating standards, to shape any future changes to regulatory standards and codes of practice, and to proactively raise wider issues affecting social housing regulation and policy not just with the regulator but with Ministers.
The Government ostensibly agree that tenants are at the heart of the Bill, and Ministers have repeatedly assured us that one of its primary objectives, largely owing to the fact that the warnings of Grenfell Tower tenants were repeatedly ignored before the fire, is both to give social housing tenants a voice and to ensure that voice is listened to. Yet when it comes to providing ways in which tenant representatives can exert a measure of influence over the work of the regulator, shape the future direction of the regulatory arrangements that the Bill establishes, and proactively influence national regulation and policy so as to shape the services that tenants receive from their landlords, the Bill lacks all ambition. We believe this is a serious omission.
Since the abolition of National Tenant Voice in 2010, we have not had an independent body that is truly representative of tenants across the country and allows them to speak for themselves on a more equal footing   with other interests. The Bill cannot be the vehicle for establishing such a body, but it could do much more to ensure that tenants are influencing the making of national regulation and policy. In Committee, the Minister resisted several amendments we proposed for empowering tenants, on the basis that the social housing quality resident panel provided sufficient opportunity for tenants to share their views with Government, that measures to ensure sufficient tenant representation and influence on the advisory panel were too prescriptive, and that there was no need to bring providers of social housing within the scope of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 because the new access to information scheme enabled by clause 22 provides for the same right of access.
We were not convinced by these arguments, and we remain concerned that the Bill, as drafted, will not meaningfully empower tenants. We have therefore tabled amendments 36 and 37 and new clause 6, which taken together would ensure that tenants are adequately represented on the advisory panel established by clause 2 and able to influence how it operates; that the panel would have the ability to provide information and advice directly to the Secretary of State in circumstances in which it feels that is necessary; and that tenants and others have the right to access information held by providers on a range of key issues of concern, including fire safety and health hazards, beyond what they might secure as a result of any information and transparency scheme that might be—I stress the word “might”—established under clause 22. I commend them to the House.

Andrew Slaughter: My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. On new clause 6, he knows that I have an interest in freedom of information, and I introduced a private Member’s Bill to do just this. The Freedom of Information Act applies to housing associations in Scotland, the Information Commissioner supports that, and there were endless examples in what the Campaign for Freedom of Information gave us in preparation for this debate of housing associations just refusing or ignoring requests from tenants about fire safety, damp and mould and other issues. Why should they be treated differently from council tenants, and why will the Government not adopt the FIA, which is designed exactly for this purpose, rather than use their own scheme, which would do a pale reflection of that in trying to enable tenants can find out basic information about their own safety?

Matthew Pennycook: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; I could not have put it better. We are seriously concerned that clause 22 does not have the same effect as bringing providers within the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. We think that tenants, and tenant representatives and those acting on their behalf, should be able to enjoy those rights, so that they can get information of the kind that, as he rightly says, providers regularly refuse to give to tenants.
Before turning to the Government amendments that have been tabled since the Bill left Committee, I wish to speak briefly to new clauses 7 and 8, which stand respectively in the names of my hon. Friends the Members for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). I turn first to new clause 7, or “Georgia’s law”, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood  has named it, in reference to a constituent of hers who was forced into temporary accommodation for an extended period as a result of her teenage son being threatened by gang members at their family home.
In our view, new clause 7 is a sensible and proportionate amendment that would make a real difference to a small but significant minority of tenants in England who find themselves in the exceptional circumstance—I must stress that fact—of a police referral as a result of being subject to the threat of serious violence. Its effect—the protection of existing tenancy rights in the case of a forced move linked to a threat of violence and greater co-operation between registered providers to rehouse those affected in a social home—is clearly not unduly onerous, and the Government’s argument that such a measure would cause insurmountable problems with local authority allocations policies is entirely unconvincing.
The Minister gave a guarantee in Committee that the Government would work with my hon. Friend
“to see what more can be done in this area to prevent any more cases like that of Georgia and her boys emerging.”––[Official Report, Social Housing (Regulation) Public Bill Committee, 29 November 2022; c. 66.]
It is therefore incredibly disappointing that the Government have not been willing to bring forward an amendment of their own to ensure that others do not have to experience what my hon. Friend’s constituents were forced to go through. As such, if my hon. Friend pushes her new clause 7 to a vote, we will of course support it.
We also support new clause 8, because while we recognise that the Government are taking steps to address the issue of unscrupulous providers of supported accommodation by means of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill, promoted by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), we are in full agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden that the regulator should have the ability to inspect temporary accommodation. There is statutory guidance designed to ensure that existing minimum standards are met for all temporary accommodation, but we know that in practice bed and breakfasts, hotels and shared houses used by local authorities across the country to house homeless families are frequently substandard and often hazardous, because that guidance is rarely adhered to.
The truth is that with almost 100,000 households, and now more than 125,000 children, living in temporary accommodation, according to the Department’s own figures, local authorities have little leverage when it comes to deciding what standards they are willing to accept. A huge amount needs to be done to decrease the demand for temporary accommodation across the country, most of which is well outside of the scope of this Bill. But in the short term, stronger regulation and inspections could make a real difference, and in the most extreme cases they could save lives. On that basis, we support new clause 8.
Finally, I turn to the Government amendments that have been tabled in recent weeks. The bulk of them are uncontroversial and largely technical, and we support their incorporation into the Bill. I do, however, wish to touch upon Government new clause 1. Awaab Ishak’s untimely death from prolonged exposure to mould in the house his parents rented from Rochdale Boroughwide Housing should never have occurred and the fact that it  did, frankly, shames our country. The coroner was right to call it a “defining moment”, but it falls to this House to ensure that it truly is. It is therefore essential that we legislate to compel landlords to act quickly to remedy hazards of the kind that ultimately killed Awaab.
The regulator’s initial findings on damp and mould in social housing, published on 2 February, estimated that up to 160,000 social homes have notable problems with it, and a further 8,000 have hazards so severe that they pose a serious and immediate risk to health. Given the scale of the problem, landlords who fail to proactively review the homes and buildings they manage or lease for hazards, who deal with tenant complaints relating to such hazards ineffectively, or who blame damp and mould on lifestyle choices and myriad other factors, rather than taking responsibility, cannot be tolerated.
Government new clause 1 is a laudable effort at amending the Bill to ensure that social housing providers are forced to investigate and deal promptly with hazards that are a danger to the health of tenants. As the Minister said, it would allow the Secretary of State, by regulation, to set timescales to which social landlords must adhere in respect of remedying hazards or be in breach of a tenancy agreement, as well as specify what kinds of action must be taken. Enforcement will, of course, depend on access to legal representation, and in many cases legal aid, Government new clause 1 nevertheless provides an enforceable right that enhances the provisions contained in the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck). We commend the Government for tabling the new clause and we support it in principle.
However, we are convinced that Government new clause 1 could be strengthened in several important respects, and to that end we have tabled amendments (a) to (f). Taken together, they would set out on the face of the Bill the location of the relevant prescribed requirements at proposed new section 10A(2); make clear the extent of their application; detail the circumstances in which any provision of a lease or any agreement relating to a lease is void; and clarify where courts may order specific performance of certain obligations. We believe those changes would improve the clarity and functionality of Government new clause 1 and thereby make it stronger, and we hope the Government will give serious consideration to accepting them.
To conclude, this is without question an important and urgently needed piece of legislation, and we are extremely pleased it will complete its passage today. Everyone has a basic right to a decent, safe, secure and affordable home, and it is our sincere hope that by overhauling the regulation of social housing by means of this Bill, we will better protect the health, safety and wellbeing of social tenants across the country. We welcome the numerous concessions that the Government have made throughout the passage of the Bill, but we believe it is not yet the most robust piece of legislation that this House can possibly deliver, the achievement of which has been our objective from the outset. We will shortly have the opportunity to amend it further so that it is, and I urge the House to come together to that end.

David Simmonds: May I start by drawing the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests  and, in particular, my role as a vice-president of the Local Government Association? That is an important starting point for why I so strongly welcome this Bill and commend the Government team, especially for new clauses 1 and 2, which are going to be the main focus of my contribution this afternoon.
It was immensely useful, and terrifying, having served as a London local authority councillor and as an office holder in the LGA, to see the things that we learnt about the regulation of our housing market following the Grenfell disaster. Local authorities across the country will welcome the fact that this Bill begins to bring a degree of definition to the situations where regulation that perhaps in the past had been vague could apply, and a greater degree of rigour, which enables a greater degree of accountability in respect of landlords who may be falling short in their responsibilities.
I wish to flag up the fact that some issues remain to be addressed, because although the model of Ofsted as a regulatory framework is a good one, the weakness of Ofsted is that it focuses its inspections through the role of the local authority and the local authority’s powers in a diverse and complex education market are limited, just as they are in the context of a very diverse and complex housing market. I would simply say that, following the situation at Grenfell where large numbers of landlords suddenly realised that they would be required to address quite serious safety issues, we saw a number of examples around the country where private landlords with substantial blocks that were entirely occupied by tenants on social leases through the local authority essentially put those blocks into liquidation and walked away. Therefore, there was a need for a local authority in those kinds of situations to step in. How we deal with perhaps sharp business practices by landlords, who may seek, under a single brand, to register large numbers of individual properties or developments separately to try to evade—at least to some degree—the scope of regulation will be an ongoing challenge, and one that we already face in the buy-to-let market.

Matthew Pennycook: I rise to speak to the new clauses and amendments in my name. I join the Minister in welcoming Grenfell United, Shelter and others to the Public Gallery.
There is a shared recognition across the House that the lives of far too many social housing tenants are blighted by poor conditions and that, although there are good social landlords, too many still routinely fail their tenants. That shared understanding has underpinned the consensus across both sides of the House that the Bill is both necessary and urgently required.
Since the moment the Bill was finally published in October 2022, the Opposition have been clear that we support it and that we wish to work constructively with the Government to see it make rapid progress. Yet at every stage, we have been at pains to convey our strong feeling that the Bill could be strengthened in a number of areas, and to urge Ministers to approach our suggested improvements with an open mind and in the constructive spirit in which they were offered. That was how we approached Committee, and it is why we worked with the Minister to secure the Bill’s speedy passage out of Committee.
We pressed a range of amendments in Committee, including on three key objectives: the need to expedite the professionalisation of the sector; the need to ensure that the Bill provides, in practice, for the Ofsted-style inspections regime to which the Government are ostensibly committed to introducing; and the need to further empower social tenants. I shall take each in turn.
On professionalisation, we welcome the concession made by the Government in the other place regarding professional training and qualifications, and the resulting addition of clause 21 to the Bill, but we pressed in Committee for that clause to be strengthened so that it not only provides the regulator with the ability to set standards on the competence and conduct of individuals involved in the management of social housing, but includes requirements to ensure social housing managers have appropriate objective qualifications and expertise. Our reasoning was simple: as a result of the progressive residualisation of social housing over the past 40 years, it is now overwhelmingly let to those most in need and often least able to challenge poor conditions, not least because the chronic shortage of social housing in England leaves most with few, if any, options to move if they receive an unprofessional service from their landlord.
The circumstances leading up to the fire at Grenfell Tower in June 2017 and those surrounding the death of Awaab Ishak in December 2020, as well as countless other instances of negligence and neglect that will have gone unreported, make perfectly clear what can happen when staff do not listen to their tenants, do not treat them with respect, do not respond to their concerns with empathy and understanding, do not deal appropriately with their complaints, and in some instances actively discriminate against them. In our view, it is therefore essential that those managing the homes of social tenants are properly qualified to do so; that they have undergone the necessary training to ensure that they are treating tenants fairly and providing them with the necessary support; and that they undergo continuous professional development—just as we expect those in other key frontline services to do.
In Committee, the Minister stressed the Government’s concern that giving the Secretary of State the power to stipulate mandatory qualifications for social housing managers through regulation could risk the Office for National Statistics reclassifying housing associations to the public sector. We never dismissed such a risk out of hand, but neither were we convinced it was an impediment to strengthening clause 21, not least because we have never seen any evidence that suggests that mandating qualifications would automatically trigger a reclassification. To underscore how strongly we felt about using the Bill to  expedite the professionalisation of the sector, we tabled new clause 5. However, true to the commitment that the Minister gave in Committee to explore in good faith whether there was scope to go further without risking reclassification, the Government tabled amendment 47 and others just before the deadline on Friday afternoon.
The Minister mentioned frontline social housing managers, unless I am mistaken. While we would welcome an assurance from the Minister that the definition of “relevant manager” in that amendment and others encompasses all those in frontline roles involving extensive resident engagement, such as neighbourhood housing, customer service and antisocial behaviour managers, and also a commitment that the Government will set out a timeline for implementation in the not too distant future and that the new burdens doctrine will apply in relation to local authorities, we are satisfied that amendment 47 and others address the concerns we raised in Committee. On that basis, we are happy to support them. I take the opportunity to once again praise Grenfell United and Shelter for helping to convince the Government to make the concession.
Turning to the issue of inspections, we welcomed the concession made by the Government in the other place to impose a duty on the regulator to publish, and take appropriate steps to implement, a plan for regular inspections. I once again commend the efforts of Lord Best and Grenfell United in achieving that outcome. However, while recognising the need for the regulator to have a significant degree of discretion in formulating that inspections plan, we pressed in Committee for clause 29—which was then clause 28—to be made more prescriptive in two important respects. First, we believe it is essential that the Bill makes it clear that all registered providers, large or small, will be subject to inspections by the regulator. Secondly, we believe it is essential that the Bill ensures that every registered provider will be subject to routine inspections.
In resisting our amendment in Committee, the Minister made two principal arguments: first, that it would be unreasonable to bind the regulator’s hands by specifying that the inspections plan must include those two minimum requirements; and, secondly, that basing the system of inspections on a provider risk profile determined principally by size will ensure those landlords at greatest risk of failing tenants are accorded greater oversight. In our view, both those arguments are flawed.
On the argument that we should not bind the regulator’s hands, the Minister must surely appreciate that the Government cannot on the one hand commit to introducing an Ofsted-style inspections regime, and then resist specifying any minimum expectations as to how that regime should operate, however reasonable they might be. If the Government’s intention were to give the regulator unlimited operational flexibility in relation to the inspections plan, they should have been clear about that fact, rather than promising tenants that they would introduce an Ofsted-style regime, with the obvious connotations that that has in terms of universal coverage and a defined regularity of inspection.
On the argument that a risk profile based on a size threshold will best ensure tenants are protected, the Government have not provided any evidence as to why they believe that landlords with a stock of 1,000 homes or more are at the greatest risk of failing in terms of standards. We appreciate entirely the case for prioritising  larger landlords with a stock of over 1,000 units, given that that will cover the vast majority of social homes in England, but there is no evidence to suggest that landlords with fewer than 1,000 homes are less likely to fail their tenants; indeed there are cases listed right now on gov.uk of such smaller landlords having been served regulatory notices for breaches. Nor can we understand, given that these smaller landlords are responsible for just 4% of England’s social housing stock, what the Government believe are the benefits of allowing them to escape regular inspection, given that doing so is unlikely to significantly reduce the burden on the regulator and carries the obvious risk that one or more smaller providers will fail their tenants as a result of the lack of oversight.
The Bill comes at a very helpful time given the rising diversity of different types of social tenure. I am referring in particular to the proliferation of different types of new housing associations, the development of local authority housing companies coming to this market, as well as the traditional housing revenue account social housing, which has been the bedrock of social tenancies for such a long time.
I wish to share with the House an example from my constituency, which demonstrates why those elements of new clause 1 about the remedying of hazards and of new clause 2 about strengthening the powers of Government to issue guidance to providers can potentially make such a significant difference. I pay tribute to my constituent, Suzy Killip, a resident of Eastcote, who has worked extremely hard on behalf of neighbours, most of whom are social tenants, although not all, in a development that is managed by A2Dominion, a large housing association. My constituents have described their frustration at finding that complaints about substantial matters—including those relating to safety, the development of damp, the inappropriate or improper installation of equipment, for example ventilation in homes, the inadequate   installation of safety measures that were part of the planning consent on the development—are simply ignored. They feel this enormous sense of frustration that, under the current system where they, as residents of properties, are unable to bring these matters effectively to the attention of the landlord and get them remedied, they simply do not know where to turn. As a Member of Parliament representing them, I have experienced the same challenges when my letters have gone unanswered and ignored. I know that many of us in this House will have had similar issues relating to developments brought to our attention in our constituency surgeries.
It is especially clear when some of the housing associations, some of the landlords, have close relationships with developers. There is often an incentive on the part of the management company not to address issues, particularly those that arise with new builds, because they are concerned about the impact that it may have on their longer-term relationship as a business with that organisation.
Suzy Killip describes to me a situation where there has been a long-standing failure to address issues of damp, including in properties occupied by children and young people, as well as by people suffering from health problems, for whom the damp contributes to the seriousness of their ill-health. There are also issues with drainage that are causing unpleasant smells and the risk of foul water coming back into people’s homes. Then there is the community centre that was much praised as the flagship of the development, which is still not in use 13 years after Hillingdon Council granted consent on what was a former Ministry of Defence site for an intended model development. That is as a result of a landlord who is simply not willing to engage with the people who are stakeholders and who therefore needs to be held to account by strengthened guidance.
We also see—I know that this is very common in planning departments in London local authorities—a greater enthusiasm for the “safer by design” theory. This is the idea that, by building in effective security measures into the structure of developments, we can reduce the impact of crime and antisocial behaviour. We have already heard Members talking about the impact that it may have on people needing to move home because of the risks that they experience. For those facing a situation where a landlord should have included those safer by design elements—perhaps they have been funded to, or have been granted planning consent on condition that those elements were included in the property but have not been—we need to ensure that there is a greater degree of rigour. In my view, new clauses 1 and 2, particularly that point about guidance—the detail of that guidance will be important—offers us a serious opportunity to make progress on that.
Will the Minister give an assurance on the issue of the brands of landlord who separately register sites, including quite large sites, under separate ownership? That is something that we see across all types of different businesses, it is not an uncommon practice, and there are often perfectly legitimate and appropriate reasons for doing it. However, I can certainly see A2Dominion, which is a sole social housing provider and which gives rise to almost all the complaints that I receive about social housing in my constituency, beginning to pop up in other places. I want to be assured that, having implemented effective new guidance—codes that have  teeth and effective powers for Government—we will not then find that, somehow, the rogue landlords are slipping out around the corners. I know that Ministers have been enormously keen to address that, and my constituents would be especially grateful to receive such an assurance, as it is at the forefront of their concerns.
That said, this is an extremely welcome Bill. I understand that there is some debate to be had about amendments to and fro, but it moves us into a much stronger position. The inspection of local authorities envisaged in the Bill would bring a degree of focus and clarity to what their role is in respect of different types of housing tenure. From my experience as a councillor in a local authority, where we went through the process of acquiring properties with the intention of making them fit for purpose for social tenancies, I can certainly say that all sorts of issues will often emerge through that process. Historically, there has not been an effective framework against which to set a rigorous inspection or through which to seek effective redress where problems have arisen. So often in the past, it has simply been a matter of opinion rather than something that can be found in guidance or clearly in legislation.
For all those reasons, I commend the Minister and the Secretary of State, who is now here, for the work that has been done on the Bill. It will be a big step forward in providing a much safer and more secure environment and the ability to remedy problems when they occur. Many tenants across the country would like to expect that as a right but sadly, in too many cases, it is still not provided by landlords, despite the fact that those landlords receive substantial amounts of money for the homes that they provide.